Promoting Unbiased Online Competition for Travelers
Travel Tech Advocates for Fair Market Rules to Restore Competition and Choice in Online Travel Search
Over the course of the last twenty-five years, the Internet has profoundly transformed the $3 trillion global travel industry, reshaping how consumers plan, book, and experience travel. Travel Tech member companies pioneered the technologies that enable consumers to have competitive travel pricing, availability, and reviews at their fingertips. Because of Travel Tech member company innovations, travel suppliers – airlines, hotels, and car rentals – must compete, benefiting consumers with more options and lower prices.
Millions of Americans open a Google general search page daily to help plan their next vacation or business trip. Many type “flight to Miami” or “hotel in San Diego” or wherever they intend to go into a Google search bar. Once they press “return,” they reasonably expect to be presented with a list of popular sites and specialized web-based tools to help them further refine their travel options to fit their budget and calendar.
However, most travelers won’t realize that Google purposely places or “self-preferences” its own travel offerings in the most prominent positions on its search results page (“SERP”). Google directs consumers to use its products first, like its Google Hotel Finder and Google Flights, which, as a result, garners the most user traffic. Other travel search tools, such as online travel agents, metasearch engines and new innovative services, are demoted to less prominent locations on the SERP. In doing so, Google abuses its dominant position in general web and vertical search to the detriment of travelers.
Google directs would-be travelers to Google’s owned products first, like its Google Hotel Finder, as seen below on a representative mobile display. Consumers must scroll to the fourth page to see non-Google, “organic” results:
Travelers want true and transparent choice when searching for travel options: results based on relevance. However, consumers are presented with a curated display of Google’s owned and monetized products on Google instead. Google is a general search engine that leverages its position in general search to favor its own vertical search product. In doing so, it increases costs and undermines both consumer choice and innovation in the travel technology sector.
The U.S. Department of Justice vs. Google decision rendered in August 2024, which found that Google is a monopolist, is a crucial turning point in addressing the company’s long-standing abuse of its dominance in general search. However, the decision does not specifically address its self-preferencing practices. Travel Tech is hopeful that the potential remedies under consideration by the court will prevent Google’s overall ability to favor its own travel vertical search products.
While the remedies and appeal of the decision by Google move through the court system, Travel Tech will continue to educate policymakers on how existing antitrust law allows the largest search platforms like Google to self-preference their own tools to the detriment of consumer choice and innovation in the travel technology sector.
